The Art of Crime
by ironheart329
Summary: Dark Knight related. WIP: A dazed, lost girl stumbles through a dark Gotham street and finds herself face-to-face with the great connoisseur of crime. With her own dark love for art, will she be his next piece, or perform at his side? JxOC No Mary-Sues.
1. Sculptor and Virtuoso

The Dark Knight is not mine, and I take no profit from this. I don't intend to follow any sort of Batman canon in particular, so don't gripe. Just inspired by TDK and Heath Ledger's amazing incarnation of the Joker.

Jess belongs to me. Please no Harley Quinn complaints. I love that character as much as the next person, but I don't see someone as bubbly as her in her current incarnation fitting with this "dark, edgy" Joker. Contains an OC, thinking possible OC Joker sidekick. Hopefully with reader advice I can keep her from becoming annoying (or GOD FORBID) Mary-Sue. DO NOT WANT. Once you've finished, let me know what you think. I don't have too much set in stone with this character, so advice will most likely have an impact on the writing. Enjoy!

***

I don't have the slightest idea where I am, but I know it is not in the blue-green hell of metal and pills. I haven't put anything in my mouth in ages.

I could really do with some water, I think slowly as my legs tromp along unevenly. I am so tired but I cannot stop moving. If I stop, I will fall and then they will strap me down, blind me with white lights like spaceships landing. If I end up back there, I will lose this marvelous knowledge that I have gained. I don't care that they call me ill – I know more than those close-minded men in lab coats will ever dream of.

I stumble. The ground comes rising up to play pat-a-cake. I don't want to, so I send it away with a punch (OUCH!) and struggle back to my feet again. My steps are uneven and painful as ever, but suddenly I notice them echoing strangely. With a touch, I decide that the ground has not, after all, become a microphone. A swirling column of grey mist comes into view ahead. It is ridiculously bright in the inky blackness of this back street. As I move forward and begin to skirt the brightness, I can see a pair of glowing eyes in the distance, speeding toward me like a hungry predator.

No, not eyes, I think. It's the cruel people – the white and green people in their armored van. Those men who beat me and grab me so tightly, hold me down and stab me over and over, hoping to make me just like them. A cardboard cutout. Not Jess, not little lonely Jessie, who is a starving refugee-artist stumbling down a backstreet of Gotham, a unique and persecuted mind, but Jane Q. Public. Part of the masses.

I will never, NEVER be like that again! Even though I may die here. And it is cold and all I have are some of the tattered old rags I wore when they took me to the asylum. I stole them back when I escaped. I don't always notice the cold, but tonight, after what the voices tell me are years (it has really only been two days… or at least two sunrises and two nights alone), I am feeling everything. All but a bit of the poisons they pumped into me, and hence most of the numbness, has worn off.

I dive into an alley, slipping along the bricks, curling low to the ground. The lights go past, and my eyes blearily follow the white points as they disappear and then reappear red. Their arc into the night is intercepted by a shadow. A huge shape blocks the light.

There is no face. There is nothing but a wall of black in billowing cloth that steps widely for me. I feel something leap up in my chest and try to force its way up my throat. I choke and cough, my eyes losing focus.

An orderly stands above me. "I don't want to go back!" I squeal at last, raising hands up and pushing them out towards the shape. "Don't take me back! If you do I'll find a way to kill myself!"

"Go back where?" comes a quizzical voice. It is smallish, dark, and hints at something menacing. It purrs its catlike question at me, smacking its lips loudly in a sort of punctuation. Not an orderly. Definitely not. I open my eyes and blink a few times. The green uniform swims away, to be replaced with a splash of dark purple. Lots of material – a suit. Cradled by the garbage-strewn earth, I have to tilt my head back to look up at the face that belongs to the question.

The night makes all but the starkest detail invisible, but there is a huge contrast to this man's features that is unmistakable even now. A great red streak of lips looks as if his face would split if his mouth opened. His eyes are sunken in two skeletal smears of black. There was a moment as I stared at him and my eyes flicked down, to see the knife in his hand. "Arkham," my traitorous lips speak before my mind can breach the fog, and I reach out for the blade in his hand.

Startled whiteness flashes to life in the sable pits of his eyes, and he laughs. It is a high, rippling sound, reminiscent of what I'd left behind – the laugh of those who truly see. "Ah, I wondered why a girl would be wandering around here, alone, at night… But you aren't all there, are you, beautiful?" He rumbles low, lips peeling back in the beginnings of a smile. I cringe and begin to close my eyes, fearing that his face will rip open. But no, his maw is normal-sized, if a bit stained.

I've seen this face before.

I have.

Fingers snapping in front of my face catch my attention. Had I been staring?

"I'm just as here as you are!" I retort, slightly miffed. "Here, see?" And my hand clumsily grabs his free one for a moment. He responds by crouching down, gazing at me with cat-killing curiosity. I press his rough, hard hand to my cheek. His smile widens and he snickers, calloused thumb dancing across the side of my face. Even through this fading haze of poison, it feels nice.

I feel my mind turning, under that warm brown gaze, to imagine what a companion like him would be like. I've been alone for a very long time. And then I remember: the knife! I had been reaching for it before his face captivated me. I reach out again to the blade at his left. My hand won't quite obey. With a small snicker, he notices me fumble for it still and, grinning, raises the glinting edge slowly, threateningly, until it almost touches the tip of my nose. I feel my eyes cross trying to follow it. Fingers fisting roughly in my hair wring a cry from my lips.

"Do you want my knife, hmm?" His animal growl is a terrible contrast to the splashy laugh he gave before. A visceral shudder tears through me and I jerk back, uselessly, in reaction as he lunges toward my face. He holds my head so close I can feel his breath puffing against me, and he lowers the small blade to my throat, pressing firmly. "You wanna… die or somethin'?"

I nod. That's why I left Arkham in the first place.

"Well, that's a shame," he giggles, his voice once again light and airy, "somebody so pretty as you wantin' to off themselves." A soft pink tongue peeks out to slide gently along his unnaturally red lips. I close my eyes and smile – something about this voice is soothing. He exudes the sort of otherness which I have learned to recognize in myself. "Why would you do that?" And the realization hits me – when he talks, my other voices are silent. Maybe that means something?

"I'm alone," I whisper, "And nobody understands me."

"HAH, nobody understands YOU?" He laughs with a note of bitterness. My eyes shoot open and see yellow, half-rotten teeth bared in a gleeful sort of grimace. "What a co-inky-dink – I feel the same way."

"They think I'm crazy," I lean away from the wall towards him, pleading. I feel the blade slide a bit along my skin and a warm trickle slips languidly down my throat. Suddenly, the world jumps again and overcome by dizziness, I grab for the lapels of his jacket to steady myself. The hand holding the knife latches onto my arm, and he leans in too, conspiratorially. Our foreheads almost touch.

"They tried to give you medicine, didn't they? Said they needed to make you better? Get rid of the voices, perhaps?" I enthusiastically nodded. "I got the same spiel from them, sugar. Those fools at Arkham are the ones that need the medicine. I call those voices 'divine inspiration', not madness!"

"You've been there?" I ask with disbelief.

"Yeah, they decided I was criminally insane, so I decided they were idiots and left!" He laughed, a high, childlike squeak. "What'd you do that someone so little and harmless-looking as you ended up in Arkham? They only put big time ca-RIMinals there." His eyes scan my face.

"I'm a sculptor. But my family didn't get it, kept trying to get me to talk to a psychologist 'cause I liked to take things apart. Mostly small animals." I reach for the knife again, and this time he lets me have it. "But they're so beautiful on the inside!" I twirl the small pocket knife in my hand for a moment. "But they didn't share my vision, see, so I took those fools apart. I used them, of course. Humans are even lovelier inside than birds, or mice, or dogs!" I press it into my thumb and watch blood trickle down my hand. His chuckle brings my eyes up to his face.

He looks like someone has told him that Christmas is coming early. He giggles and claps, and I know if he were standing, he would be dancing on his toes right now.

"You look so happy, Mr." I interrupt his joyous appraisal of me. "I like your makeup," I add, sweeping my bleeding thumb across my face in a simple imitation of his scarlet smile.

"I think I like _you_, artist girl!" He laughs again, offering me a hand. "You wanna place to stay? I'd like to see your work. I'm a bit of an artist myself." I beam and take the purple glove, letting him pull me to my unsteady feet.

"Sounds like a great idea, Mr…"

"Joker," he grins, stepping into a little bow, almost befitting his odd brightly-colored suit. "My name is Joker."

I feel my jaw drop. It's him, it's really him! I knew I'd seen him before, but because of the haze of medicine, hunger, and cold, I hadn't recognized him. "You're really-!? I knew something about you was familiar. I adore your work with explosives!"

"Ah, you're a fan?" he obviously feigns embarrassment, "why thank you!" A purple-clad arm is offered to me, and I take it. "And what can I call you?"

"Jess."


	2. Sculpture 1: The Lovers

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or the Joker. Rating upped to M for violent/explicit imagery.

**

The Narrows. A dark, crowded, filthy corner of Gotham is where the Joker makes his home. I feel my head sway back as we glide to the dark stairwell. Above me, a boarded-up, falling-down industrial building is perched, seeming to shed its skin with age. Graffiti swirls across it like faded tattoos.

"Be it ever so humble," the mischievous voice rattles in my ear. I feel the dried blood crackling against my cheeks as I smile, gazing down into the dark hole at the bottom of the steps.

I stumble down the first few steps and mutter an apology, "Still a bit stoned…" And he explodes with that rippling laugh again. That strong arm catches around my shoulder and pulls me closer. The stink in the air of this place and the swimming in my own head are nauseating, but I can feel warmth through my ragged clothes and his coat. It grounds me and I find matching his footsteps simpler.

"Well, you'll feel better once you detox. I have a feeling you'd like to get back to your work." I nod numbly as he sweeps me to the door. "You'll be free to do what you love here," he inclines his head towards me, catching my gaze from the corner of his eye. For the first time I see clearly that beneath the smear of red, the corners of his mouth are lumpy, twisted. I remember seeing photos before on the news. The scars. I can't see them perfectly in this light, but when he smiles, the corners of his mouth aren't quite right. He snaps his head away with a snort and bangs his fist on the door.

It slips open a crack and a pair of grey eyes, the left one clouded white, peeks out. A deep male voice intones, 'oh' and the door swings in. A tall, skinny antelope of a guy, his black hair sticking out in all directions, stands, holding the heavy rusted door back. He appraises us with one wide, silvery-grey eye, the other stares blindly into the abyss. His bass voice somehow has the innocence of a child, "Boss, 'oo's the-"

"Jess." The makeup-smeared mouth silences him with a word, "My dears, this is Jess." He drops his arm from me and gestures widely to the rest of the group, which I now notice for the first time.

They look zombie-like in the half-dead flickering of the fluorescent bulbs above, strewn about beat-up, junkyard ghosts of furniture, like dolls tossed to the floor. Six of them, at most. A giggling, skin-and-bones redhead looks up from the sofa. His eyes are green, startlingly so, his hair a wild mane, and his mouth a wide rictus of horse teeth.

The Joker oozes into the middle of the room and five more faces perk up from their various corners in squeaky, matted la-z-boys and scuffed-up chairs. "Meet the family," he giggles, "Blob," A fat, bald guy who seems to drown in sweat and grey fabric. He plays cards with three others:

"Kiddo," A boy who can only be described as a squirrel, all dark and twitchy motions.

"Jingle," A blond, dreadlocked creature of indeterminate gender covered in metal.

"Croc," The most muscle-bound black man I have ever seen, his skin crusty like scales.

Over in the concrete corner, a wrinkled older man, all grey with a slight tremor sits reading a newspaper, the most normal looking of them all. He is introduced to me as 'Donny.'

The redhead sprawled on the ratty sofa is simply 'Q'. He sits up and sweeps a cane into his hand, leaning his chin on it and drawling "Hellooo" with a high, musical, Australian-accented voice.

"And his brother, Lefty, you met first," he gestures to the bandy, half-blind creature standing at the door. "These guys are my friends, they're the ones behind the scenes of my performances."

I feel my eyes fall on the faces, somber in the gloom of the cold concrete and squalor, and I mumble my hello. He waves me forward and I focus on my feet, still feeling the world swaying around me, as if it were doing a hula. "Jess escaped Arkham, so you know she's one of us."

Q grinned up at me, "What'cha do?"

"Made my family into beautiful sculptures," I smiled sweetly, "I was so proud of those pieces, but they landed me in Arkham." His eyes were wide. Impressed.

"Jess is here to work on her art. I think we can use her for our next installation!"

**

The room was dark at first, but when the lights buzzed to life above, I found myself gazing up in wonder. The walls are covered as far as the eye can see in scribbles, sketches. Half-drawn, insane plots. I drift over to a particularly detailed portrait on the wall. A grinning, scarred visage. "My room," comes the gravely voice at my back, "I take it, from your expression, you like my taste?" I whirl around, a smile tugging at my lips as I take in the various remnants of furniture. An industrial steel worktable scattered with newsprint, bullets, crayons. Scraps of old papers, marked and destroyed. A jar of stained, rusted knives.

Against the far wall is an old bed, its modified frame hanging with a crazy quilt of a curtain, a devilish patchwork of bloodied, varicolored cloth. The bed also bears a similar quilt, and the smooth, silky clean bedclothes beneath seem to make a screaming contrast. Stolen, probably. Even the walls around his bed are exploding with cavorting, tumbling ideas, as if the flow of genius doesn't even stop when he lays down his head.

A loud orange overstuffed chair (most of the stuffing sticking out from little stab-wounds) sits sullenly by a side table and another mismatched chair. Even these surfaces are strewn with writing utensils and balled up paper scraps. They spill over onto the floor and around a pile of abandoned clown masks. A doorless wardrobe blossoms with green and purple in a far corner. "I love it!" I slur, plopping into the abused orange chair.

"It's yours, too, if you'd like," his dark little voice crawls up behind me and I feel breath gusting past my ear as he leans down. Giddy, spinning, I grip the arms of the chair tightly. The corners of the room, the shadows, start to crawl and I hear a squeak of fear squeeze past my lips. My eyes seem locked shut.

"They're coming back," I whisper, "The muses."

A hand squeezes my shoulder and his lips brush my ear, "Do they scare you, Jessie-Jess?"

"Sometimes," I gulp. "They whisper to me, horrible things. But then I create wonderful art, with their help. They make it hard for me to sleep, though. They're loud at night."

"You shouldn't be scared of them," he whispers.

"I wasn't before," I reply, just as softly, "But the medicines, they make my muses frightening, dark, evil."

"They were obviously giving you the wrong medicine; they want to make the voices quiet. But those doctors don't know how they work, anyway." His voice was gentle, soothing. I opened my eyes and found him looking down at me. I could see them faintly, the black things, snapping and snarling at the corners of my vision, but they stayed back. "You should get some rest," he chuckled, "Let that poison flush from your body." I barely feel my tired, acquiescing nod. A hand reaches out for me again, and I take it.

The bed is soft, if a little creaky. That was the last thing I remembered.

And then, a husky voice, "Stop crying, beautiful. You're safe." It caresses my forehead with warmth. I sink back and relax, barely conscious, comforted in the downy, cocooning heat. I feel like I'm floating. A male sigh echoes through my mind and in the dark, there are chapped lips at my neck, kissing, licking, nuzzling, muttering indecipherable words. I sigh, leaning into this marvelous reverie, wanting it to never end. Arms close around my naked waist and hands smooth across my rump, squeezing. I hear my own sound of gratification, muffled in the sheets, and teeth catch my lip roughly. A taut stomach is pressed to my own. My veins course with a dizzying desire and I picture the beauty of every layer of my imagined lover, all of his warm, moist secret places that only a knife can find. The flowing red of passion.

And there's a hot stab at my insides; a growl, those teeth nibble their way to my ear and sink in as I cry out. I am full to bursting, split open to the core like an animal on the dissecting table. How vivid the smell of blood, the weight and firmness of muscle in this dream! I cling to my lover and whimper at this wonderful new feeling, wishing this was more than a hallucination. I fade into a drug-induced darkness, drowning in pleasure.

**

Harsh light blinds my throbbing eyes, and with a shiver I gaze around, squinting. The pandemonium dancing across the Joker's walls meets my bleary stare. The blanket falls away as I sit up. I am naked.

_Not a dream._

My own gasp falls on ringing ears, suddenly pounding with blood too hard to hear anything. I ache inside, and as I move to draw sheets over myself, I involuntarily draw my legs together. My heart thunders as I shrink back in the bed. I am alone, and covered in bruises.

**

A/N: Taking advantage of a drugged-up, mostly asleep girl? Check that off of the Joker's to-do list. You know as well as I do that he's all raging ID, all pleasure-seeking hedon, all rip-roaring selfishness and chaos. He'd do it, and he'd do it with a predatory lick of the lips. Jess is also messed up on her own, but just wait and see what the Joker has in store for her. Let me know how I'm doing!


End file.
